As if we needed another reason to remind us just how horrific and morally repugnant single payer health insurance is.
Alfie Evans and the State
A medical debate that’s gone global is not about the money. It’s about power.
In this April 23, 2018 handout photo provided by Alfies Army Official, brain-damaged toddler Alfie Evans cuddles his mother Kate James at Alder Hey Hospital, Liverpool, England.
PHOTO: ALFIES ARMY OFFICIAL/ASSOCIATED PRESS
By
James Freeman
April 25, 2018 3:49 p.m. ET
439 COMMENTS
Alfie Evans is a toddler who has suffered severe brain damage for reasons that doctors at a British hospital cannot explain. Yet the same hospital and its doctors are so certain that his case is hopeless that this week they rejected the wishes of his parents and removed him from life support. The medical experts even went to court to prevent Alfie’s parents from taking him to Italy for care—at no cost to the hospital. Now comes further evidence that the doctors don’t understand his condition.
Taken off life support Monday, the tough youngster has continued to live. Britain’s Daily Star reports that lawyers representing Alfie’s father Tom Evans and mother Kate James “are arguing for his release at the Court of Appeal today. But the legal team for Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in Liverpool told the court that Alfie’s ability to breath [sic] without life support does not suggest ‘a change in circumstances’.”
Alfie’s parents say they were told several months ago that he would die immediately without life support. According to the Star:
Michael Mylonas QC, representing the hospital, told judges no new medical evidence has emerged since the High Court decided to end his life in February...Mr Mylonas told the court that doctors at Alder Hey have never suggested that Alfie would die immediately when his life support was removed.He told judges: “It was never suggested that death would be instantaneous...It has never been said to this family that Alfie would die immediately or before sundown. No doctor could have said that.”
But back in February, the Liverpool Echo newspaper reported on a doctor’s response in court when asked to describe what would happen to the child without life support:
She said Alfie may only be able to muster just a handful of breaths and survive just a few minutes if ventilation were completely stopped.Mr Justice Hayden had asked her if it could be a matter of minutes, before telling the court: “What is contemplated is a death that could be quite quick.”The doctor added: “Any decisions we come to are rigorous, and me personally I would not be making this decision unless I felt 100% it was the right decision.”
At the time, the Echo noted that the doctor’s name could not be reported for legal reasons. Therefore this column cannot ascertain if the doctors who seem to have confidently predicted imminent death in February are the same ones now asserting that nothing has changed and that they are certain it’s in the best interest of the child to be denied care now to avoid suffering.
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LifeNews.com@LifeNewsHQ
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BREAKING: Hospital Misleads Appeals Court: We Never Said Alfie Evans Would Die Soon. Told Court in February He’d Die “in Minutes” http://bit.ly/2HsjkEQ #alfiesfight #alfiesarmy
12:41 PM - Apr 25, 2018
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Yesterday this column included this case among the “annals of single-payer health care,” but it’s not a question of money or the use of British medical resources. The Catholic church and the Italian government are ready to take the child off Britain’s hands. It’s a question of a medical and legal system that denies parents the right to make such decisions. Such abuse appears to be part and parcel of a health system dominated by the state rather than the individual or the family.
But anyone thinking that it can’t happen here in the U.S. until Bernie Sanders is inaugurated seems to be wrong. Betsy McCaughey writes inthe New York Post:
Texas law gives life-and-death power to hospitals, never mind what families want. In most states, including New York, families are likely to win if they go to court to stop a hospital from pulling the plug. Unfortunately, they don’t know that and get steamrolled by hospital staff...In 2005, a court gave a Houston hospital the go-ahead to turn off the ventilator keeping baby Sun Hudson alive, over the mother’s objections. In 2017, again with a court’s OK, another Texas hospital cut off life support from 46-year-old Chris Dunn, who was awake and communicative, but descending into organ failure because of pancreatic cancer. His mother pleaded with the judges that the hospital was “trying to play God.” But Texas law gives hospitals that power.George Pickering’s adult son was on life support in a Texas hospital. Doctors declared him brain-dead, but Pickering felt his son squeeze his hand to communicate, and was convinced he could recover. When the hospital started to cut off life support, Pickering holed up in his son’s room with a handgun to stop the process.“They were moving too fast,” he said. He was arrested and jailed, but when he got out, his son had recovered — a rare outcome.
Mark Hemingway observes that back in the U.K., the Merseyside Police has tweeted a chilling warning suggesting that the right to decide medical questions is not the only liberty at risk:
We’ve issued a statement this evening to make people aware that social media posts which are being posted in relation to Alder Hey and the Alfie Evans situation are being monitored and may be acted upon.
Perhaps British authorities will monitor social media enough to recognize the public revulsion they have inspired and then act to restore the rights of parents and patients.
***
Alfie Evans and the State
A medical debate that’s gone global is not about the money. It’s about power.
In this April 23, 2018 handout photo provided by Alfies Army Official, brain-damaged toddler Alfie Evans cuddles his mother Kate James at Alder Hey Hospital, Liverpool, England.
PHOTO: ALFIES ARMY OFFICIAL/ASSOCIATED PRESS
By
James Freeman
April 25, 2018 3:49 p.m. ET
439 COMMENTS
Alfie Evans is a toddler who has suffered severe brain damage for reasons that doctors at a British hospital cannot explain. Yet the same hospital and its doctors are so certain that his case is hopeless that this week they rejected the wishes of his parents and removed him from life support. The medical experts even went to court to prevent Alfie’s parents from taking him to Italy for care—at no cost to the hospital. Now comes further evidence that the doctors don’t understand his condition.
Taken off life support Monday, the tough youngster has continued to live. Britain’s Daily Star reports that lawyers representing Alfie’s father Tom Evans and mother Kate James “are arguing for his release at the Court of Appeal today. But the legal team for Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in Liverpool told the court that Alfie’s ability to breath [sic] without life support does not suggest ‘a change in circumstances’.”
Alfie’s parents say they were told several months ago that he would die immediately without life support. According to the Star:
Michael Mylonas QC, representing the hospital, told judges no new medical evidence has emerged since the High Court decided to end his life in February...Mr Mylonas told the court that doctors at Alder Hey have never suggested that Alfie would die immediately when his life support was removed.He told judges: “It was never suggested that death would be instantaneous...It has never been said to this family that Alfie would die immediately or before sundown. No doctor could have said that.”
But back in February, the Liverpool Echo newspaper reported on a doctor’s response in court when asked to describe what would happen to the child without life support:
She said Alfie may only be able to muster just a handful of breaths and survive just a few minutes if ventilation were completely stopped.Mr Justice Hayden had asked her if it could be a matter of minutes, before telling the court: “What is contemplated is a death that could be quite quick.”The doctor added: “Any decisions we come to are rigorous, and me personally I would not be making this decision unless I felt 100% it was the right decision.”
At the time, the Echo noted that the doctor’s name could not be reported for legal reasons. Therefore this column cannot ascertain if the doctors who seem to have confidently predicted imminent death in February are the same ones now asserting that nothing has changed and that they are certain it’s in the best interest of the child to be denied care now to avoid suffering.
View image on Twitter
LifeNews.com@LifeNewsHQ
https://twitter.com/LifeNewsHQ/status/989197788155002880
BREAKING: Hospital Misleads Appeals Court: We Never Said Alfie Evans Would Die Soon. Told Court in February He’d Die “in Minutes” http://bit.ly/2HsjkEQ #alfiesfight #alfiesarmy
12:41 PM - Apr 25, 2018
Twitter Ads info and privacy
Yesterday this column included this case among the “annals of single-payer health care,” but it’s not a question of money or the use of British medical resources. The Catholic church and the Italian government are ready to take the child off Britain’s hands. It’s a question of a medical and legal system that denies parents the right to make such decisions. Such abuse appears to be part and parcel of a health system dominated by the state rather than the individual or the family.
But anyone thinking that it can’t happen here in the U.S. until Bernie Sanders is inaugurated seems to be wrong. Betsy McCaughey writes inthe New York Post:
Texas law gives life-and-death power to hospitals, never mind what families want. In most states, including New York, families are likely to win if they go to court to stop a hospital from pulling the plug. Unfortunately, they don’t know that and get steamrolled by hospital staff...In 2005, a court gave a Houston hospital the go-ahead to turn off the ventilator keeping baby Sun Hudson alive, over the mother’s objections. In 2017, again with a court’s OK, another Texas hospital cut off life support from 46-year-old Chris Dunn, who was awake and communicative, but descending into organ failure because of pancreatic cancer. His mother pleaded with the judges that the hospital was “trying to play God.” But Texas law gives hospitals that power.George Pickering’s adult son was on life support in a Texas hospital. Doctors declared him brain-dead, but Pickering felt his son squeeze his hand to communicate, and was convinced he could recover. When the hospital started to cut off life support, Pickering holed up in his son’s room with a handgun to stop the process.“They were moving too fast,” he said. He was arrested and jailed, but when he got out, his son had recovered — a rare outcome.
Mark Hemingway observes that back in the U.K., the Merseyside Police has tweeted a chilling warning suggesting that the right to decide medical questions is not the only liberty at risk:
We’ve issued a statement this evening to make people aware that social media posts which are being posted in relation to Alder Hey and the Alfie Evans situation are being monitored and may be acted upon.
Perhaps British authorities will monitor social media enough to recognize the public revulsion they have inspired and then act to restore the rights of parents and patients.
***
